Truth or consequences: A blow to police credibility in DC

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The Washington Post story this week of a possible cover-up involving DC Police and federal agents after shooting at a man during a traffic stop should worry police chiefs and prosecutors here and around the country. Incidents like this can wipe out years of important work by law enforcement in building trust in communities through transparency and better communication.

As you’ll read here, a DC Police officer testified in court that a higher-up told him not to write about the shots fired when filing an official report about the incident. The driver, who was stopped by a combination of federal and local officers, was not struck by the bullets fired by an unidentified Homeland Security Investigations officer. But there were bullet holes in the driver’s window, the empty passenger seat, and even in Phillip Brown’s jacket collar. Possibly more concerning is that the police officer’s court testimony directly disputes the official statement from the Department of Homeland Security.

Here’s what reporters Olivia George and Emma Uber wrote about the conflicting information:

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Tuesday that the special agent fired at Brown “in fear for his life” after Brown drove at officers “in a deliberate attempt to run them down.’ But D.C. police officer Jason Sterling told a judge that none of the law enforcement officers were standing in front of Brown’s car. Brown bumped into a civilian vehicle stopped in front of him and his criminal attorney, Quo Mieko Judkins, pointed out to the judge that the bullets entered the car from the side, not the front.

A story like this has the potential to tell the people police serve that they can’t trust the official law enforcement account of use-of-force incidents. It can undermine years of efforts by DC leaders and law enforcement around the country to earn the trust of their communities. Police have often earned this trust by prioritizing putting confirmed information and video from body-worn, dash, and security cameras into the hands of the public. Many departments follow rules and even laws that require this information to be released on an often-accelerated timetable. It is the kind of information the public used to only see and learn about months or even years later during a trial.

For those who think this kind of police leadership smacks of being soft or woke and believe the federal surge of police in our cities is there to wipe out these policies with a new kind of toughness in action and words, you’re missing an important point. Police chiefs and prosecutors didn’t move to these policies solely to answer demands by activist community leaders. This openness has also been part of an effort to put away violent criminals. The people whose trust police have been trying to gain are also the people who witness crimes and make up juries in their communities. Jury nullification, where citizens ignore clear evidence to convict because of their distrust of police and the legal process, has been a problem for law enforcement. In DC, the new leadership at the U.S. Attorney’s Office has already seen this with grand juries refusing to indict, apparently due to a failure to trust the evidence presented by prosecutors.

It’s one thing to talk tough about crime. It’s another thing to talk the truth. The truth sometimes means admitting and showing that law enforcement officers make mistakes or worse.

In Fairfax County, Virginia, I watched earlier this year as Chief Kevin Davis stood before TV cameras and reporters, presenting videos that showed exactly why police were justified in shooting and killing a man who wounded two officers. He did so from the scene of the shooting, a little more than two hours after the shootings occurred. I’ve also seen Chief Davis be just as candid about an officer who was eventually fired and prosecuted for killing a fleeing shoplifter. Full disclosure: Before the arrival of Chief Davis in Fairfax County, I was a member of a Fairfax County police practices commission that helped create the new procedures for the timely release of such information and video.

Just a few weeks ago, there was a good example in Wisconsin of why this kind of openness can be so important. The City of Milwaukee expedited getting dash-cam video in front of the public following a fatal shooting involving an off-duty officer. Police rushed the video release to shut down growing distrust and unrest over the initial police version of events. Police did so with the assistance of the dead man’s family. After viewing the video, the family of Elijah Wilks said through their attorney, “We acknowledge that (Wilks) made a bad decision yesterday and unfortunately it came with dire consequences.”

DC Police and other local departments will likely pay a huge price if they allow the feds to destroy their credibility with the public. At some point, federal intervention in local law enforcement will retreat. If cities are left with citizens having so little trust in police that it impacts getting violent criminals off the streets, what has been gained?